Some people complain, “Why does it have to be black lives matter? All lives matter! It should be #AllLivesMatter.”

A voice cries out:
In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!
Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill shall be made low.

Because we’re filling in valleys. That’s why.

…This passage never made sense to me as a kid: all the highways I knew about didn’t have any trouble going down into valleys and up into mountains. I did better when I thought about a scaled down, more mundane version of the imagery that had more connection to my life.

Hey, everybody — the LORD is coming to town, and our streets are a mess!
Fill in the potholes: every single one of them!
Grind down those speedbumps. Make the road level!

Our society may say all lives matter; but actions speak louder than words, and there are some damn deep potholes in our roads. Black people, black men and black women and black children, are being brutalized and killed by agents of the state (that’s what police officers and the military and the FBI are) at rates far, far higher than those for whites.

If God sends you to speak comfort to these suffering people over here, are you really going to object that it should be all people?